SimBench: Open source time series of power load, storage and generation for the simulation of electrical distribution grids

In operation and planning of electrical grids, it is essential to account for temporal fluctuation of produced and consumed electric energy. Time series based studies often use standardized load profiles for this, which, however, cannot accurately represent the individual peak patterns in load and demand and their random combinations. As part of the SimBench project, we developed a dataset of energy time series to be assigned as individual profiles to grid nodes in high voltage (HV), medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) grids to calculate local power flows in a more realistic way. Load profiles are classified and assigned to categories on the basis of similarity to standard load profiles to represent a broad range of energy users and generation profiles were created using weather data and an agent-based simulation tool. The subset presented in this paper comprises different 77 one-year-profiles with a 15 minute resolution, containing commercial consumers, household consumers, storage, and production units based on real measurements from Germany with a focus on MV and LV levels.